A technical team has been suspended after a Vietnam Airlines plane was found missing a case protecting its brake cooling fan.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has suspended a repair crew that forgot to install a case designed to a brake cooling fan on a Vietnam Airlines plane last month.

“The direct cause of the incident was that the technicians had shortened the maintenance time… leading to the careless oversight,” CAAV said in a press release.

Soon after VNA’s Airbus 321 flight arrived in Ho Chi Minh City from Da Lat on March 26, technicians found a brake cooling fan was missing.

CAAV investigators then found that the technical team had forgotten to install the device during a routine maintenance a day earlier.

It announced a temporary suspension of the team members' licenses, without identifying the individuals involved or the period of the punishment.

Officials say the offending crew will be retrained on proper procedures.

Aviation inspectors will also issue administrative fines against the entity and individuals involved to maintain strict discipline against aviation safety violations, the CAAV said.

It requested that VNA and Vietnam Airlines Engineering Company (VAECO) inform their technicians of the incident to ensure it does not happen again.

VAECO was ordered to review its maintenance procedures and plans to ensure sufficient technical personnel.

Last October 21, a Vietnam Airlines’ ATR-72 airplane carrying 41 passengers from the northern port city of Hai Phong landed safely in the central city of Da Nang; the crew was unaware that the aircraft had lost one of its two front tires until airport technicians informed them.

Four days after the incident, inspectors found the missing tire in a grass field some 1.15 kilometers from the runway where the ATR-72 airplane took off.

Lai Xuan Thanh, director of CAAV , said the incident was serious and the Ministry of Transport immediately ordered inspections of all 14 of Vietnam Airlines's ATR-72 aircraft.

Technicians found nothing wrong with the front tires of any of the other planes.